All That I Can Bear

Unibrow 3

Unibrow 2

I'd drawn quite a bit but my Mac is experiencing difficulties, so I was unable to save it. Here's a redux based on a screen grab (I was smart enough to do one when I realized I wouldn't be able to save the file). For some reason it's less detailed than what I recall, but no matter...

Unibrow

I got an email with some fashion pics in it, and this shot of a male model caught my eye. He wasn't attractive to me, but he was striking in that his bone structure - especially with his pronounced brow bone and unibow - made for interesting lines.

(G)Old Standards

Butterick, Vogue Patterns, non-editorial magazine illustrations: those are the fashion illustration standards I grew up with in Manila. The lower-end fashion styles were seen as desirable, especially since they illustrated for a customer the actual dresses and clothing before they bought into it. Not the most advanced stylistically, but easy to comprehend, and they were my understanding of what was supposed to be good. What did I know, right? To this day, I still strive for that, despite knowing better. This was a quick sketch, not fully finished by any means, with that end in mind (hence the really prosaic clothing). I recalled a woman named Trining, who was the best illustrator that my mother ever hired, and who stayed with us at our shop the New Yorker the longest (well, at least in my nascent memory). She became synonymous with the Gold Standard of what all illustrations were supposed to look like. I wonder where she is now? She was at least a decade older than me, maybe more.

Old Fashion(ed) Sketch

I pulled a pad next to me and actually drew in pencil! Nothing to this sketch - just the usual shaping inspired by old fashion illustration. But the pencil didn't have enough intensity, must have been too hard a grade. (need to scan the sketch to upload it soon)

Phoenix, Again

I revisited my old Phoenix drawing again. Funny how things look so different when there's been a bit of time lapsed. I fixed her eyes and facial proportions that looked awfully long. Can't believe I missed that originally.

Medusa Riff, 4

Well, I guess I'm still tinkering with her. Details, details.

Medusa Riff, 3

Now a bit of coloring. Not sure what I should fix here, but there's a lot off right now. Ah well, a work in progress. Well, assuming I decided to go further with it.

Medusa Riff, 2

Just added a few more details to the original sketch. Not much, but some. She kinda reminds me of Natalie Portman's Princess Amidala character in Star Wars.

Medusa Riff

I completely forgot to do a drawing on Thursday, so when I realized it Friday morning, I put together this image based on the Inhumans comic book cover that was staring at me from my desk. The main character on the cover, Medusa, had a cowl that I found interesting, so I decided to do my riff on it.

Wacom Intuous 4 trial

I went to TekServe on Wednesday eve to attend a demo of a product I've been interested in this past year, and while waiting for the demo to start, I decided to play around with the new Wacom tablets they had on display. With double the pressure sensitivity of my current one, I had a hard time adjusting to it. The lines on this sketch were way shakier than I'm used to.

Joshua

I met this kid named Joshua on Tuesday, a musician who had the sweetest demeanor, and who really seemed to respond well to my Prefab Sprout album. He complained that his hair was all crazy long. I thought it was perfectly disheveled.

Kiiiity

I didn't want to draw. I was having Monday blues, but I forced myself to do something quick. I used to breed and raise Siamese cats when I was in my teens, and I love cats, Siamese in particular because I have a long history with them. I love how this one has the slightly skewed ears of a cat wondering what the heck is going on.

Flygirl 3

The truth is I don't have the energy to start a new sketch. But to my defense, when I used to doodle all the time on the pad next to the phone (while I chatted away for hours on end with my friends), I always played with older sketches and fleshed them out more, or added to them.

Flygirl 2

I think I lost all of the flow that the initial sketch had - fleshing out my work can sometimes do that, sapping the energy of the lines. Still, this was done on autonomic - while I was watching an episode of the new "V" series.

Flygirl

I think I was scanning an ep of Queen's Blade (a kinda tacky anime that I still nevertheless watched) and this image of a very comicbook-y/anime flight pose popped into my head. I attempted to do that very Rick Leonardi chunky hair that can look like it's sheets of fabric flowing in water.

Nudity

I always admire simplicity but sometimes am at war with myself because my tendency is to want to make my work look like other people's work: lush, finished, and completely considered. Yet I love the lines of people like Gruau who seem to run a stroke in half a second and get it perfect. This one is kinda half there and half not, at least in theory.

Maudlin Man, shaded

Maudlin Man appears to be wearing mostly drkshdw and Rick OWens...

Maudlin Man

I was a bit bothered (as I've been known to be for the past...oh, two years) and I wanted to convey what I was feeling, yet I had no energy to do so because of feeling maudlin. Hence the simple line sketch. But I like the stance and the angle... I think that worked out somewhat.

Purple Anime Hair 3

I couldn't stand it - I had to clean up the lines a bit otherwise it just wasn't even approaching an anime style. I think I can leave it alone now, haha!

Purple Anime Hair 2

I tried my hand at animation style shading. I'm too messy to clean this up properly. I've always admired super-clean drawings like former animator Paul Smith's work, but my own style is much more sketchy. Interestingly enough, one of my online friends prefers it when I clean up less (yes, Justin, I mean you).

Purple Anime Hair

Japanese anime use color a lot in the hair of their characters, and odd colors that would never occur in reality are normal, mostly because they draw all the character so similarly, I imagine they need things like color to differentiate them. This one was inspired by me watching an ep of a show called Element Hunters, which I didn't get into... although I did draw someone with a purple blunt cut like one of the characters.

Chalk Sasuke

I was watching a new Naruto episode tonight, and one of the main characters, Sasuke, had quite a few images throughout the intro montage. I decided to draw him as if I were drawing the anime character in my own style. I really didn't want to draw tonight as I had a swollen wrist for some reason, but the minute I put on the chalk tool in Painer, I just kept sketching.

Scary Clown Bird

Okay, lesson learned: don't try to put human facial features on a bird without planning it out first. This ended up looking like some freaky creature from The Yellow Submarine. >shiver!<

1000

And here I thought I'd do a special 1000th drawing, but there's so much to be said about just doing what you do and everything becomes what it will.

This blog was started almost 3 years ago when I realized that after my Mom had died, I stopped drawing as much, or as joyfully, as I once did. It was a hard conclusion to come to, because as much as my mother is and perhaps will always be the most important person in my life, my art is as much a part of who - and what - I am. And once I realized how much I wasn't doing, I felt a hole. And that I wasted so much time.

I may not be the best illustrator, but this is me, and I began this blog in order to keep drawing, even when I didn't want to. And I can make an effort to commemorate a particular event, but each time I put color to pen or pixel, it's a commemoration in and of itself. I can only hope that the few people who make it a point to look at this blog can see that while my work may not be always at its best, my work is quite possibly the best part of me.

Christian Dior Macquillage

A former best friend posted an ad for CD makeup, with the iconic bright colors I remember from my youth in the 80s. I used it as a model for this face, especially since I wanted to look like this for Halloween, but didn't get the energy up to even try (I'd need LOTS of beauty spackle!). But certainly as a drawing, it works. I really like the chalk tool underneath a pencil-like line - it kinda resembles a watercolor wash.

On a completely different note, this is my 999th drawing on this blog! Woohoo!

Fae

I wasn't ready to draw too much - but sometimes a little goes a long way in my head, and I liked the features of this 3/4 view, perhaps because I sketchs it facing a side I normally don't use. Perhaps the unfamiliarity pleases me...? I remember as a child I used to collect faces that I drew that I liked. If I sketched them on some scrap of paper, I'd tear the face away and just store the round inch-diameter or so piece in my drawer full of drawings. I wish I brought those sketches back with me to NYC.

Eye've Expanded

I never draw a face after I've fleshed out a part - I usually can't get the proportions right. This was an experiment in trying, because as I drew in the rest of the features, I realized the eye was kind of unrealistically proportioned. Still, I tried my level best.